Our perspective at VantagePoint

5 logo design crutches

You’re stumped. You need to design a logo, but the creative half of your brain has just decided to take its summer vacation. No ideas. Zip. Zero. Nada. It’s happened to the best (and worst) of us. So what do you do? Try these 5 shortcuts to see if one of them might help inspiration strike.

1. Do something with the type. Don’t add anything TO the type, just let the type make the logo. This logo for a magazine by one of the all-time great American designers Herb Lubalin is a great example.

2. Add something to the type. A decorative element, a flourish, maybe even a swoosh. (But then throw that idea out right away, as it’s been done a bazillion times.) You might recognize this famous logo with its flourish.

3. Create a mark with a letter and some geometry. Put the first letter in a circle. Or both letters in a square. Don’t stop there, but at least you’ve got something on paper now. (And speaking of paper, you should NOT be doing any of this on the computer. Sketch first, to avoid being enslaved by what you know how to make Illustrator do for you.)

4. Illustrate the name of the company, even if it has nothing to do with what they sell. This is from the “duh” department, but occasionally it works exceedingly well. Like here:

5. Illustrate what the company sells. Again, this is one of those things you’ll want to keep moving beyond, but it might provide a tiny bit of inspiration. And every once in a while, it works, as in the original UPS logo at the top of this post, or in this logo:

The bottom line, however, is this: don’t stop here. This is a crutch, remember, just to get you started. The really creative ideas will come after you get over “designer’s block.”

Dave McQuaid

Dave helps keep fresh concepts — both verbal and visual — flowing for VantagePoint Marketing’s clients as vice president for creative and digital. With undergrad and grad degrees in journalism, design and theater from Bob Jones University, Dave has put his education and experience to work for over 100 different clients and has nearly 400 regional and national creative and digital awards to his name. When he’s not doing things fast at the office, he’s doing them fast somewhere else — Dave is an avid runner and road cyclist, a frustrated Playstation racer and a close follower of Formula 1 racing.